Carlos Lagos Ruiz confesses that it was his idea to put together a pyramid. That which consists of a business where part of the invested money (contributed by third parties or new partners) is used to pay the interests of others; on this occasion, the committed capital was about S / 20 million. This is stated by those affected, who number in almost a hundred.
The company in question is called VIC Import SAC, which Lagos co-founded in 2019 and in which he appears as general manager. The company was supposedly dedicated to supplying alcohol to well-known pharmacies and drug stores due to the high demand for the input due to the pandemic, according to a complaint made by one of the injured parties.
In this, the affected account that he was contacted on May 25 by Gian Karlo Yauri Fernández, partner of Lagos, to invest in the company and who at the same time presented the latter as an intermediary between VIC Import and a well-known chain of pharmacies of the which were alcohol suppliers.
The business was lucrative enough to attract small and medium investors, who saw a clear opportunity, especially since, as seen in the complaint and accompanying photographs, Lagos presented purchase orders with company logos and initially complied with the payment of the interest that it promised. Sometimes up to 20% and sometimes 15%, depending on those affected.
In the case of the complainant, The story continued with various operations of withdrawal, collection of interest and reinvestment of these, until on December 13 he asked Yauri to make a withdrawal for more than S / 120 thousand, amount that did not exceed the amount that had invested. They told him that he should make the order in advance, but that they would honor the payment. What continued was the beginning of the end.
“On December 14, 2021, around 5 pm, Mr. Gian Karlo Yauri Fernández, comments to my brother and myself through a WhatsApp message that he discovered that the operation was a pyramid scam and that it immediately prevented Carlos from Lagos (general manager according to him) fled the country by plane “It reads in the complaint, made on December 16 and that, in addition to including Yauri and Lagos, includes Brando Michael Tapia Manrique and César Augusto Loredo Rosillo.
The complaint exposes part of a story whose end also began to be experienced on December 14 by several of the investors who began to be informed of what happened.
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Frustrated escape
On Tuesday, December 14, at approximately 9 pm, one of the contributors, who preferred that her name not be exposed in this report, became aware of the pyramid system. They informed him that Lagos had confessed that the idea was his in a video.
Lagos says: “I confessed to my partners from the company VIC Import, Brando Tapia, Gian Karlo Yauri and César Loredo, that all the loans that I have been making throughout all this time that we have been working together have been part of a pyramid where the money has only been used to pay interest, and obviously, under lies such as purchase orders and assumptions that the money was going to be used for such. My partners were not aware of this type of action at any time. Everything has been on my part. It was all my idea and they are not responsible for these actions. Any kind of action should be taken against me because I was the one who started this and the one who has maintained it throughout this time. “
After seeing the video and learning from other investors that Lagos had planned to leave on a flight to Colombia early the next day, the victim went to Jorge Chávez Airport, where together with other victims and members of the Police, he waited for Lagos. He appeared with his partner after 1:00 am and after a series of verbal accusations and police intervention, he was taken to the airport police station.
After hours of waiting, the alleged businessman was released after not having been found in flagrante delicto after 48 hours of what happened.
Although he had missed the flight to Colombia, hours after his release, the concern of investors in VIC Import was that it would leave the country. Currently, Lagos has an unknown whereabouts and already has more than 10 complaints made in recent days. “There are many people who are older or are outside of Lima and have just found out what has just happened,” adds the victim who preferred anonymity.
Data
- Other complainants include Juan Ortiz, Alex Trujillo and Kelly Rivera.
- Some of the injured claim to have been affected by amounts of approximately S / 150 thousand, S / 300 thousand and S / 1 million. Others refer amounts in foreign currency, such as US $ 26 thousand.
